Sure, Marvel has confirmed that the long-awaited Marvel Universe MMO is back on, but don't hold your breath waiting; technology and synergy mean that we've got three years until we'll see it at least, apparently.

Marvel's president of worldwide consumer products Simon Philips spoke to MTV last week about the game, and gave a 2012 date for the game's release, citing advances in technology as the reason why all the original work on the game (from the publisher's failed Microsoft partnership) had to be dumped:

Finally, your dreams of fighting Doctor Doom and Magneto are about to come true... well, kind of;…
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Every day, every week, and every month, there is a new element of technology that comes about, [s]o whatever plans we had for an MMO two years ago have now evolved to embrace that new technology... [2012] sounds like a long way away, but it's not... We've got to create, together with [game publisher] Gazillion, that environment that is going to be a totally immersive experience and a perpetual storytelling experience as well.

Not that he's concerned about the wait, however. After all, the longer he waits, the more familiar Marvel's movies will make the characters, as he explained:

[E]ach of our upcoming movies and each of our animated shows, each of those just creates the awareness and adds to the whole experience... Marvel is all about the synergy between each of the different areas we're involved in - from the comics to the movies to the animation to the merchandising, all of them work together. And the ['Marvel Universe' game] is going to play off all of that.

If this means the game is going to be a mix of Sam Raimi whimsy, Robert Downey Jr. wit and no-one knowing what to do about the Hulk, then I'm ready to sign up right now.